8 out of 10This is more than just an album, it's (in every sense of the word) a journey. A perfectly scored soundtrack to a movie that (although is based on actual events) exists only in our heads. This album has a theme yet according to Jóhannsson himself, "it's loose and open to interpretation".
Fordlandia is part two of a trilogy roughly based on technology and iconic American brand names. Part one was 2006's IBM 1401 A Users' manual, which guided you through the assembly and operation of a piece of 80's machinery, constructed, operated on, tinkered with, mentally dissected and finally destroyed by his own music. The last track called 'The Suns Gone Dim' is his most recognizable single as of yet.
Enter, Fordlandia. This time around, the jungles of Amazon are the setting, the time set back in the Roaring 20's and chronicles the failure of Henry Ford's synthetic rubber plantation. His vision of domesticating a piece of the Brazilian rainforest into a white-picket Utopia ended in riots and bloodshed, and by going into it with all that in mind, you can practically play out each and every scene in song. From the very idea of it coming to fruition, until the last falling brick, this album neatly wraps up the birth of the situation and ultimately, it's death. But it doesn't stop there. It follows up with mournful, yet respectfully-in-remembrance songs with undertones of courage and bravery that hold your hand all the way through the grieving process.
For example, track nine entitled "The Great God Pan Is Dead" crescendos it's way to a full and epic chorus that captures the entire span of conflict and resolution of a situation (another fun track open to interpretation), but then holds you in a satin blanket of a soft stringed melody for just a moment, just it's way of saying that everything is going to be okay.
Five out of the eleven tracks (Melodia I-V) are different but gorgeous variations of roughly the same melody, which is a great nod to his first album, 2002's "Englabörn" and it's sixteen variations of "Odi Et Amo". (by far my favorite). Also very much worth a listen is his 2004 opus, "Virðulegu Forsetar".
To sum up this concept album, the first (fourteen minute long) track is called "Fordlandia". The last (fifteen minute long) track is called "How We Left Fordlandia". So good/intelligent, you could almost file this under literature. In addition to co-founding "Apparat Organ Quartet" as well as "Kitchen Motors" in Reykjavic, he keeps himself very busy by turning everything he touches into awesomeness.
Standout Tracks: Fordlandia, The Great God Pan Is Dead, & How We Left Fordlandia
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